


Do we wake or sleep?

by DNpoison



Category: Penny Dreadful (TV)
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-07-21
Updated: 2015-07-27
Packaged: 2018-04-10 12:12:08
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 3,165
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4391426
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DNpoison/pseuds/DNpoison
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"but even when sleeping you could feel<br/>him travelling away from you in his dreams<br/>so what did you want to do, love [...] ?"</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> The fic is basically, how I pictured Ethan's return right after I watched the season finale. I wrote it on my phone and haven't really write anything longer than two lines a time in english in the last four years. I couldn't find a beta reader either, so I'm sorry if my wrinting sucks, hope you can enjoy some of it :)

PART I: Vanessa.

 

Her eyes slams open, like a door to another world. And just for a brief moment, she’s somewhere else than her room.

Unfortunately,   the moment is gone with a breath.

There’s a feeling on the pit of her stomach that makes her heart race.

 _It’s him_.

She can feel on her every bone this weird electricity, this pulling, like her skin are about to rip open. _He is in danger_. But more importantly _, he is alive_ , and she wants to keep it that way, but she doesn’t know how.

 

_So we walk alone, but where?_

He left everything behind. His clothes, his guns, the new books he brought; and sometimes she catches herself standing in the middle of the guest room, door and windows shut, trying to keep his essence there, his smell, the comforting scent of wood, petrichor and, of course, a little bit of gunpowder.

He smelled like safety, like the home she wanted to be. But he wasn’t there anymore and the only thing that kept her sanity was fading. Vanessa was afraid she couldn’t pretend he never left, and for weeks the shadow of a doubt kept hunting her: He might be dead, _Deep in the cold clay on a forgotten hill_.

 But as she sits straight in her bed, the doubt is gone. _He is alive_. _He needs me_.

_But, how?_

The cards have been giving her answers for such a long time she can only hope that one will be there.

 

xxxx

 

 _What a hateful man_. Vanessa can barely keep the disgust out of her face while looking at the man across the room.

_You asked him to come, control yourself._

Yes, she must control herself, control the whole situation. Here is the man that came after Ethan, according to Sir Malcolm.

Vanessa wants to rip that smug grin of off his face with a sharp knife, but she knows better.

“I’m afraid I can’t give you what you want, Ms. Ives” his grin wide to a smile. Why does he do that so much? She learned never to trust a person who is always smiling.

“It’s very important to me, Inspector Rusk” she replies in her softest voice, letting a tear slide down her face “Please”

The smirk are still there, but there is a shift, a woman’s tears can be powerful with men like these, the ones who look down on them, who think too highly of themselves, who like to “save” damsels in distress.

“May I ask you why, my dear?” his eyebrows furrows, he keeps smiling.

She looks away, pretending a shiver and lets out a small sob while her hands slides up to her stomach, trying not to press the robe too much so she can look big enough.

“I’m afraid I might be doomed” Vanessa lets out a cry and then, keeps crying until her tears wash out the man’s smile.

“I’m afraid you are, Miss” he says with wide eyes “He is gone. Forever”

The tears, suddenly, becomes real and she feels like her heart, her lungs, her stomach, just dropped scattered to the floor.

 

_I can feel him._

“NO!” she shouts at him and Rusk’s face contorts ugly “HE. IS. NOT. DEAD!” 

Vanessa is taken by surprise when that hateful smile of his makes a comeback. And worse. Becomes a laugh.

“Oh, no, he isn’t” his voice becoming cruel. His tone becoming like the one the man she killed used to have “He wish he was so lucky, my lady”

 _Tell me, then_. She demands, mentally, her whole body trembling, threatening to crumble right there, in front of him.

“Tell me where he is” she demands aloud, the softness gone and replaced by anger.

He keeps his smile going while the silence grows longer, while all she wants to do is to go upstairs, open the book and give him many reasons to never smile again.

“You should kill it while you can. Mothers, sometimes, give birth to monsters” he says getting up, unleashing a ferocity in her, one quite close the one she felt when facing the fetish with her face. _You are not taking that chance away from me._

She goes to him, an unknown strength rising from her chest, her hand clasping around his neck, a menacing look taking the rest of the mask she had put on the moment he walked in.

“Ridiculous, hateful, man. Do you think you know power?”

The man’s smile is dead and she can feel his life pulsing away. The words Ethan said that cold night in the moors are the only thing able to make her stop and she finally lets go. _He is alive, that’s what is important_.

She knows if he weren’t, Rusk wouldn’t be so damn lucky.

His body falls back to the couch.

“Get out of this house” her voice comes out almost like a bark. Like a howl. Vanessa looks down at his pathetic face, all his pride and arrogance stripped away.

He stands up, trying to hide the shaking of his body.

“Go ask his daddy back in America, Miss Ives” he spits the words to her “They may lock you up in the asylum as well”

 

_Asylum?_

 

She’s taken by surprise, but before she can ask anything, he is gone.

She needs to go find him.

 

 

 

PART II: Sir Malcolm

 

He just came back.

 

He just came back, but here he is, in a ship again, seduced to another expedition. Only now, it’s not the Nilo he is seeking. It’s a wolf. It’s the wolf of God.

Her protector.

Malcolm can’t help but stare at her pale face and intense look. He knows she’s concentrated in something and he suspects what that is.

Vanessa is concentrated and connected on that place he tried to throw her so many times when they were looking for Mina, where they now look for Mr. Chandler.

She had told him he came to her on a dream, his beaten body submerged in icy water, his hair gone, his voice screaming for her, his ears not listening when she said she was coming to him.

 _That’s what hurts the most. The impotence of giving your loved one any hope._ He remembers how much he wanted to give it to Mina. To let her know he was looking for her while she was still her.

It was too late for him to save Mina. But if there is a God, he hopes they will be able to save Ethan and, in the process, save the daughter he still has.

Vanessa, his stubborn, ferocious, strong, daughter, who don’t have the father she deserves.

He knows he has failed with too many of his children, including her. But he is, in fact, trying to change. He had provided some kind of dignity for the children he could find back in Africa and now he will, even if it costs his life, provide Vanessa with the protector she deserves. With the happiness she still can have.

His affection takes the best of him when he notices a tear falling of her worried face and makes him cross the distance between them.

“What is it?” he asks, sitting by her side and taking her cold hand. He feels her trembling and her pulse accelerating.

“It’s so dark and cold” she shuts her eyes, her bottom lip twitches “They keep him chained, locked. He can’t escape. Not even in the full moons… Do they know? Are they afraid? One day, a mistake will be made, everybody will pay…”

“We are almost there” he tries to calm her down. _Two weeks_ , he remembers the Captain saying “We will arrive before the next full moon”

“He should have killed that father of his when he had the chance” her teeth chatters and she pulls her hand, bracing herself. He can almost feel Ethan’s feelings and thoughts merging with hers. They are becoming one, even apart. Even with half an ocean between them.

“Vanessa, open your eyes” Sir Malcolm call for her, trying to make her come back to him so he can comfort her, even though he can’t be what she needs.

“I want to be alone” she asks in a small voice “Please”

 _She doesn’t want out of any of this._ He realizes that the pain is all she has to keep going and even envy her for it. _It’s the only way she can be with him right now._

Have he ever seen her like this? Giving her whole self so easily? So unafraid?

He envies Ethan as well for putting her walls down.

 

He forces himself out of her booth and back to his.

One day, Sir Malcolm looked at Ethan and wanted him as a son, the one he thought he deserved.

He is not so arrogant anymore, but he still might have Ethan as a son. 

 _He is family._ He thinks fiercely. _And we will get him back._

 

 

 

PART III: Ethan

 

Even in his dreams, he can feel himself traveling away, like one day he will wake up and no longer be the man he used to look in the mirror every morning.

The only thing keeping him from that fate is the face he tried so hard memorize by a window on a cold day, and, even now, when he could miss freedom or the feeling of the sun in his skin, he only misses her, the icy blue eyes, the soft hand traveling down his face, the lips he could only taste once.

God, how he wanted to kiss her that last time, but he knew if he did, he wouldn’t be able to leave, he wouldn’t be able to stop.

_You should have kissed her, walked away with her back to The Moors._

The days the dreadful doctors come, filling his veins with poison, every hallucination feels like a blessing. Sometimes is just like she is there, sitting beside him, smiling and smoking.

When the effect is gone, his whole body misses her and he can even sympathize with the man who forced him back to America.

Vanessa is his phantom limb. 

“Vanessa” he calls, even when his dry throat refuses him any sound “Vanessa, please” He remembers being able to call her back, when her body was no longer hers. Does she hear him now?

“I’m so sorry, my love” he lets himself cry, stripped of any shame.

“Is it her name?” He asks, behind the cell door “She is the reason why you left me and your brother?”

“Came to banter with the son you have left, old man?” Ethan raises his head. His father can chain his body, but not his soul, not his pride “I don’t remember you having so much free time back in the old days”

He lets out a laugh that turns out like a hysterical yelp.

“That is because I hated you. I hated you both” he states, with no amount of ceremony “Do you have any idea how you two reminded me of your mother?” he spits, angrily “What would you do if this Vanessa girl had left you with only a child to remember her? A living thing? I’ll tell you. You would wish the life of the thing to be replaced by hers”

He wants to say. _I wouldn’t even think of such a thing._ But just the thought of Vanessa bearing his child is enough to suffocate him to the point of physical pain. _I should have stayed with her that night, make the world end to let another one begin…_

“But now, my son, you don’t remember me of her no longer” his father’s voice interrupt his thoughts and he can see the old man’s opaque eyes sparkling “You remember me of myself… Aren’t you a ferocious, sanguinary, little beast?”

“So I’m replaced memory after memory, my father? First with the memory of your deceased wife and then with the memory of the man who murdered her?” He finally says it out loud.

He finally remembers.

The old man lets out a growl, but what is an old dog’s bark, to his own beastly howl?

Ethan is not afraid anymore, he has already lost everything.

“Your beloved mother liked to tell me Indian folktales about the warriors who ate their opponents flesh to absorb their power, you know?” Mr. Talbot says, walking backwards. Back to the shadows “Do you think the full moon adds up to one’s powerful flesh?”

Like if the visit was just one of his hallucinations, Ethan finds himself alone again, the moonlight a haunting warning of what is to come.

 

_I should have killed him when I had the chance._


	2. Fog, dust and dreams

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The conection between Ethan and Vanessa grows, but so does the danger around them.

Part IV: Vanessa

 

It was a long trip down to New Mexico. The more she saw, the more she got a sense of scale, Ethan’s stories taking place in every landscape.

The London fog replaced by New Mexico’s Dust felt much more intoxicating for her; it brought a feeling that it could impregnate your every sense, like _his_ presence.

When she and Sir Malcolm finally arrive in their destination, Vanessa knows America is as exquisite as Ethan is.

 

“We won’t be staying here, it’s just a temporary measure, until I find a more suitable place” Sir Malcolm tells her, the days without sleep, she can see, starting to weigh on his face “We may need more privacy than a Hotel can provide”

 

She just nods, tired, trying to suppress the maddening desire that tries to push her to follow her instincts to Ethan immediately. She can almost feel him now, like the shiver of a body expecting a touch, the tremble of lips expecting a kiss.

 

“I have been told the doctors are keeping him in the hospital basement, in a kind of a cell. He was previously in a Medical Center in New York, but it… Didn’t work well” as much as Sir Malcolm tries to hide the emotion in his voice, she can still hear it “His father has much more influence here and is well known, only few people know Ethan’s whereabouts, none of them are a part of the law enforcement. It seems Inspector Rusk handled him directly to his father”

“I see your influence can work even beyond the seas” she smiles at him, as glad as she can be.

“I hope it can work even further” he says with a darker voice “We will have to work in the shadows.”

“Haven’t we always worked in the shadows?” She asks rhetorically, trying to remember a day the darkness didn’t followed her close, a day she didn’t followed it right back.

xxx

 

There is no way Ethan’s father will stop her from doing anything to get him back. She knows it even now, with him standing right in front of her.

 

Vanessa wasn’t surprised when the invitation to meet him was delivered on her hotel room, although she is surprised now, looking to the man she already know from the dreams she shares with Ethan.

That’s how she knows it’s real, all those dreams, visions and whispers.

 

“They told me a Vanessa had arrived in town” he smiles at her, teeth showing, almost like a threat, almost ready to bite “I had to see for myself if it was _the_ Miss Ives my son talks about so much”

“Oh, does he now?” she raises an eyebrow.

“Of course” his answer sounds rather enthusiastic “So much I recognized you on sight… Such a pretty hair you have”

 _Roper_. She tenses up. _Of course._

 “Where is he? If you don’t mind me asking?” she smiles sweetly, already knowing Mr. Talbot have his lies build up.

“Anxious, are you?” he laughs.

“You see, I crossed an Ocean to find him…”

“Do you love him, Miss Ives?” He interrupts, his face changing to a mask of calm, covering something darker.

Her whole body is frozen in place. What should she tell him? Why else any woman would go so far for a man?

“There are no common words or explanation for what _I_ feel. We belong together, Mr. Talbot” she drops the act; there is no kindness able to break the ice she can almost feel in the man’s heart.

His laugh fills the room like a poison, and when he speaks so softly, she wonders if it isn’t, if a man can carry poison in his skin.

“Why would he leave you all alone, then?” even across the room, it’s like he’s saying the worlds right above her shoulder.

“Good and even Bad men, think they can save themselves” she stands up from her seat, followed by him “Sometimes, it takes a woman to show them how to embrace their own darkness”

“You talk as if said darkness were a good thing” he puts up his smile again.

“If the heart is ready, why not, Mr. Talbot?”

 

 

Part V: Ethan

 

He doesn’t know if it’s the wolf getting ready to come out or if it’s really just a fever, but he knows his whole body is burning up, leaving him with a sickening feeling, like his organs are melting and everything inside him are going wrong.

Maybe all this feelings will go away when _they_ try to drown him in ice again.

 

“They won’t have the chance to do it again” he hears his thoughts being answered, her raspy voice echoing inside him, all around him.

And then, there she is. Bathed by the sunlight, looking him trough a mirror while brushing her hair. How he loved the smell of her hair, the curls loose on her back, the leaves he had to pick after their walks…

“Stop drifting Ethan” she keeps staring at him “See me”

“Am I seeing you? You are not real” he laughs to himself.

“Don’t I?” she stands from the dressing table, her naked body so illuminated; it’s like the moon trying to battle the sun. “I am real because I’m always with you, Ethan”

When she reaches him, they aren’t in the cell anymore and the stone and wood around him are home, The Moors. When she touches him, her body is soft and warm and without the chains he can touch her skin, he can _feel_ , feel the heaviness of her breasts, the scar on her back, the wet between her legs.

“Vanessa” his voice trembles.

“Take me Ethan” she begs “Take me and let the pain be forgotten”

But it’s she who takes him, sinking her body on top of him, letting they merge into each other, hypnotizing him with the image of her bouncing breasts, her long and dark hair floating around her face, her parted lips… Until the mesmerizing image starts to fade.

He wakes up, and the scream of pain is so loud, he knows it must have been heard beyond that walls.

When the scream finally dies, he can still feel her breath on his neck, her voice on his head.

_"I dreamed of you, Ethan."_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I writed and edited it in such a sleep deprieved state I don't know if it's any good, but I keep my promisses! Next chapter will be up soon (and maybe will be the last one) XO

**Author's Note:**

> There goes part I, I know some of it can seem a little OC, I'm open to critics.  
> I'll be posting the next part next week, stay tuned ;)


End file.
